Moving from the cloud edition to the desktop app

Note

The cloud edition is the hosted service at console.tabledi.com.cn, which serves the Chinese market. If you have never used it, this page is not for you — the desktop app needs no migration.

Three steps

Download your data from the cloud edition. Sign in at console.tabledi.com.cn, click the workspace name at the top left, and at the bottom of the drawer choose Move to the desktop app → start the .tdbk download. The server packs every workspace and table on your account into one encrypted file; with a lot of data it shows a packing progress and takes a while.
Download and install the desktop app — macOS and Windows, from the download page. Double-click the icon after installing and you are in the main interface, with nothing to sign into.
Import it. The desktop app finds the backup on its own the first time you open it and offers to import — press Import this data. If it does not appear, use the sidebar: Desktop settings → Data backup → Choose a .tdbk file (there is also a Desktop settings entry in the workspace-avatar drawer). The engine restarts and you are looking at your familiar workspaces.

If you cannot find the migration entry in the menu, don't work around it: write to tabledi@thingworks.com.cn with your registered email address, we will export your .tdbk and send it to you, and the last two steps are unchanged.

Common questions

Can Excel open the downloaded file? No. .tdbk is TableDI's own format, so that views, formulas and relations survive intact. If all you want is the table data, use Export Excel / CSV on the table while still in the cloud edition.

What happens to a paid cloud subscription? Paying cloud users who move to the desktop app are sent a lifetime license key at their registered email address. If it has not arrived within a week, contact support.

How long will the cloud edition run? For a good while yet; email notice is the authority. After it winds down we keep a full backup of the data, so anybody who missed the migration can ask support to recover it.

Will importing overwrite what is already in the desktop app? Yes. The desktop app's current data is renamed and kept (recoverable by hand), and the backup's contents become the live data. On a freshly installed app there is nothing to lose. If you have already built tables in the desktop app, export your own .tdbk first, then import the cloud one.

How do I merge two accounts' data? .tdbk replaces the whole package, so it cannot merge. Export the secondary account's tables one at a time as templates in the cloud edition, then add them to the desktop app with Upload local template file.

After migrating

Collaboration, share links and public forms depend on cloud services and the desktop app has none of them. Everything about building tables on your own is there.
The data now lives on your computer, which makes backing it up yours to do.